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Day: April 1, 2008

If there’s anything we’ve learned over the years about global warming alarmists, it’s their penchant for asking other people to do their part to conserve and/or invest in alternative forms of energy, so we can all “save the planet” before it’s “too late.” We’ve seen this from the likes of, among others, Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, and various entertainment industry windbags – all people who relish giving the common man grief and guilt over how they are “ruining” the planet with their “wasteful ways.”

It’s not exactly a secret amongst global warming skeptics that Senator Ted Kennedy is as big a hypocrite on the issue of global warming as many of the rest of alarmists, but I don’t think there’s a piece out there that encapsulates just how much of a hypocrite he and in fact other members of the Kennedy family are when it comes to not practicing what they preach as the following Hannity’s America video segment. It’s a little over six minutes, but well-worth watching if you want to know the full extent of Ted Kennedy’s duplicity on the issue of alternative energy sources.

I originally added the embedded link from Fox, but that doesn’t seem to be working right now so I found the same video on YouTube. You’ll have to turn your speakers up on it because the sound is not as good as it was on the Fox embedded video link. If you have trouble hearing that, here’s the direct link to the video. Hilariously enough, as of the time of this writing there is a short ad running just before the video segment promoting clean coal.

Back in late January, Senator Kennedy passed “the torch” to Senator Obama, embracing the junior Senator from Illinois’ call for “change” in America, claiming in his endorsement speech that “[w]e will make the United States the great leader and not the great roadblock in the fateful fight against global warming.” But clearly, when it comes to holding himself to the same standards he demands of others, Ted Kennedy is a miserable failure.

I actually felt some genuine sympathy for Obama after watching the video. He had to know going in that he was a lousy bowler, but gave it a go anyway … for votes, of course. In the end, the whole “man of the people” routine just looked goofy – kinda like I would look if I volunteered to be a guest speaker at a trucker’s convention.

A federal judge has ruled that Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) can collect more than $1 million in legal fees in a lawsuit against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) over a taped phone call, the Associated Press reports.

Tired of all the infighting, the accusations of racism and sexism being thrown about by both camps, the allegations of “voter suppression,” the mudslinging in general, and worried that come time for the Democratic National Convention the nominaton issue still won’t be resolved, Al Gore announced today that he was throwing his hat into the ring in hopes that he can resolve the crisis that currently looms for the Democratic party.

When asked why he waited so late to declare his candidacy, Gore glared menacingly at the reporter who asked the question and, after sighing, responded that he had been so busy flying across the world in his private jet trying to save the planet, that he hadn’t had time to file the necessary papers until today.

With her once-high poll numbers slipping in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton is pulling out all the stops to try to win over Keystone state voters which, as the NYT Caucus blog reports, apparently includes the adoption of the Rocky theme:

PHILADELPHIA — Move over, Celine Dion. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a brand new theme song, and it could knock you sideways.

“Rocky” anthem of the underdog, and a Philly favorite to boot, rose up on the sound system Monday night at a Clinton rally in nearby Fairless Hills, Pa. Today, Mrs. Clinton has grabbed on to Rocky’s story as her own, telling labor leaders here that like him, she’s not a quitter.

“Let me tell you something” she said in remarks prepared for delivery later this morning to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “When it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people.”

She is referring, of course, to the calls for her to leave the ring. Senator Barack Obama has won more delegates, has more overall popular votes and has won more states. Some of his top supporters, notably Senator Patrick Leahy, have said Mrs. Clinton should concede and leave the stage before things get too ugly, that she has no way to win.

[…]

“Now, this is one of the most important elections we’ve ever had” she says in her remarks. “There is so much at stake. But just as it’s getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he’s getting tired of it. His supporters say they want it to end. Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, â€˜Well, I guess that’s about far enough?'”

Sheesh. Just what will we see next? Hillary jogging up the “Rocky steps” to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, waving her hands in the air triumphantly? The Obama campaign trotting out the race card again by suggesting that Hillary is implying that Barack Obama is the Apollo Creed of the 2008 Dem presidential campaign season?

His bowling night is part of his Reinvention Tour 2008, where he tries desperately to connect with working class white voters, as Jonathan Cohn at TNR notes:

For the last two weeks or so, as my colleagues can attest, I’ve been asking everybody I know whether they recalled ever seeing Barack Obama stand outside a factory and greet workers as they walk in for their shift. It’s one of, if not the, most cliched moments in poiltics. But I couldn’t recall Obama doing it–and neither could any of my colleagues. I also didn’t find any references to such events on Lexis-Nexis, either–although, in fairness, it’s not so easy to search for that sort of thing.

I thought that was indicative of Obama’s biggest poiltical problem: His inability to connect with working-class white voters. It was the reason he’d struggled in Ohio–and, I presume, the reason he’s been so far behind in Pennsylvania. And while there’s no simple fix, I’ve always thought Obama just needed to spend more time interacting with blue-collar voters and establishing the kind of relationship he now lacks.

Lo and behold, that’s just what he doing. As Paul West reports in the Baltimore Sun, Obama’s ongoing tour through Pennsylvania is a break with the recent past. He’s not filling basketball arenas with thousands of activists and college students. Instead, he’s hitting bars, bowling allies, and–yes–factories.

As the article explains, he’s also trying to fly under the radar, in the political sense. He’s riding in an unmarked luxury bus, not a garish campaign caravan. He’s making himself available to all sorts of local press, but not national. And his staff isn’t even announcing all of these events early.

There are a lot of things about campaigning that are annoying, and politicians trying to act as “men and women of the people” are frequently on that list. Don’t get me wrong – there are polticians out there who have and can successfully connect with voters on a man to man level (the late Senator Paul Wellstone comes to mind), but when I see Mitt Romney acting like he knows how to grill out, or John Kerry in 2004 pretending to be a connoisseur of Philly Cheese steaks and looking silly asking for Swiss cheese rather than Cheese Whiz, my eyes roll. Sometimes, heck, most of the time, it’s much better if these guys just stick to what they know best: politics.